Sonic the Hedgehog is a platformer for the Genesis, and the first game to star Sega's mascot, Sonic. The game was designed by Hirokazu Yasuhara, with graphics by Naoto Ōshima and Rieko Kodama. The music was composed by Masato Nakamura, a member of J-pop band Dreams Come True.
Development for Sonic the Hedgehog began in April 1990, when Sega tasked its AM-8 team to come up with a new mascot for Sega that could compete with Nintendo's Mario, and develop the game around the new character. The 5 person team created Sonic and changed the team name to Team Sonic.
The game was released in 1991 as a pack-in with the Genesis and Sonic replaced Alex Kidd as Sega's mascot for the 16bit generation.
Sonic differentiated himself from other games by including a speed element, as Sonic was a fast hedgehog much of the game was spent speeding through the courses. Platforms and attacking/avoiding enemies played a major role like other games in the genre, but the speed aspect broke things up a bit. As a mascot Sonic differentiated himself from characters like Mario by having a cocky and confident attitude. The success of Sonic led to many other "Mascots with Attitude" platformer games by third party developers.
The game features Sonic on a journey to stop Dr. Robotnik (aka Eggman) from collecting the Chaos Emeralds, along the way Sonic must clear each stage to free all the animals that Robotnik has captured. The stages are littered with enemies that are animals Robotnik has changed into robots. By destroying the robot, Sonic frees the trapped animal within.
The game contains 6 zones, each with 3 acts, before the Final Zone stage and boss fight. Zones include Green Hill Zone, Marble Hill Zone, Spring Yard Zone, Labyrinth Zone, Star Light Zone, and Scrap Brain Zone. The 3rd act of each zone concludes with a boss fight where Sonic must battle Robotnik in his latest giant robot.
Sonic featured a unique health system where Sonic's health is based on holding rings. If Sonic is hit while holding rings, all rings with be dropped and some can be recollected, but if Sonic is hit while he has no rings he loses a life and must start from the last check point.
Sonic's main method of attack is to hit an enemy while jumping into the air.
If the player finishes act 1 or 2 of any zone with 50 rings or more the player will enter a secret stage. The stage constantly spins while the player collects rings and bounces Sonic off walls and gems that can be destroyed. Certain area, when hit, will reverse the rotation of the stage. The goal of the stage is to find the hidden chaos emerald and avoid the "exit" spaces. If Sonic finds the emeralds in all 6 of the bonus stages over the course of the game, the player will receive a better ending upon completion of the final stage.
As Sega's mascot the franchise became wide spread in the 16 bit era. Sega released a ton of sequels and spin offs for the Genesis as well as versions for the Game Gear and the older Master System. The 8-bit version of the game, which was released for Game Gear and Master System, featured a different set of stages and is a different title.
Sonic the Hedgehog was included in many Sega compilations, including Genesis 6-Pak (1996) for the Genesis, Sonic Jam (1997) for the Sega Saturn, Sega Smash Pack (2001) for the Dreamcast, Sonic Mega Collection (2002) for the Nintendo GameCube, Sonic Mega Collection Plus (2004) for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, Sega Genesis Collection (2006) for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (2009) for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3; and Sonic Classic Collection (2010) for the Nintendo DS.
Sonic the Hedgehog is followed up on the Genesis by Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, as well as several spinoffs.
esonic89
2012-08-16 10:13:50